‘Was I?’
‘Totally.’ I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that I used to spend hours in front of the mirror copying how she rolled her socks down and tied her jumper around her waist.
‘Funny old world,’ she said and clinked my glass.
‘Ladies, I am so sorry.’ It was Eamonn again, taking his gin and joining it to our glasses. ‘To the Brits in LA.’
‘The Brits in LA!’
Lovely as all this was, I wished he’d get down to it and tell me.
‘Eamonn, I know why you asked me here tonight. I just want to say that I understand.’
Eamonn looked very uncomfortable.
‘It’s OK. I understand,’ I assured him.
‘Look Sarah, I don’t think we should . . .’
‘No, please, we have to discuss things, Eamonn.’
‘Sarah,’ he sighed. ‘OK, let’s have a little chat in my office.’
We got into his office. He closed the door. I was still breathing. Just.
‘Sarah.’
‘Go on. It’s OK,’ I said as soon as he’d closed the door and faced me. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
‘I just don’t know what’s the matter with her.’
‘Who?’
‘Rachel.’
‘Uh?’
‘Well, that’s why I invited you. I thought it would be nice for Rachel. She barely talks to me at the moment. She’s always tired and she sleeps a lot. I don’t think she’s enjoying it out here.’
‘Uh.’
‘I thought you were going to start doing some relationship counselling out there.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Me?’ I repeated. ‘I couldn’t offer relationship advice to a pair of socks.’
‘Sarah, what on earth is all this about?’
‘I thought you were going to sack me from the film.’
‘Sarah, why on EARTH would I sack you from the film?’
‘Because I can’t act and I sound as though I’m from Tooting Bec.’
‘Sarah, for God’s sake, you are great! I loved the stuff you did in that Ned scene. That little dance was genius. The accent’s great.’
‘Oh.’
There was a knock on the door. It was Rachel.
‘Sarah, your phone’s ringing. Do you want to take it?’
‘Yes!’ I screamed, racing to the door and grabbing it from her. It was a withheld number. Oh please, please, please be Simon.
‘Hello.’
‘Sarah, Miles Mavers. 8 a.m. tomorrow?’
‘OK. See you then.’
‘Sorry. I thought it might be Simon,’ Rachel whispered when I’d hung up.
‘No. Just bloody Miles Mavers.’
‘Miles Mavers? What does he want?’ overheard Eamonn.
‘Oh,’ I tutted. ‘It’s just about my early morning voice class.’
‘Really?’
‘Every morning at 8 a.m.’
‘I didn’t know you’d asked for them.’
‘I didn’t ask for them. He told me I needed them. Although I wouldn’t call them voice lessons. More like an hour of humiliation by Miles Mavers in sportswear.’
‘He told you you needed voice lessons.’ Eamonn’s voice was rising.
‘Yes.’
‘He told you that you needed voice lessons.’ I’d never seen Eamonn cross.
‘Yes,’ I squeaked.
‘He told you . . .’
‘Eamonn, what’s the matter?’
‘He’s only here to work with Leo. Leo hasn’t done much acting and he has a habit of swallowing his words. He had no right to approach you. You don’t need coaching. Your accent is perfect. I wouldn’t have cast you if it wasn’t. And even if you needed them, I wouldn’t give you lessons while you’re working! You would have had them weeks ago.’
Eamonn was furious.
‘The cunt!’
I leant back. I’d never even heard Eamonn say ‘fuck’, let alone ‘cunt’. Eamonn was a bloody and bugger man. I took it from Rachel’s face that it was a first for her too.
‘What is that man playing at?’ He drained his glass and strode back to the bar.
fifty-four
Eamonn Nigels was a Scorpio. Miles Mavers was about to feel the sting in his tail. Eamonn had instructed me to go to my early morning voice class and keep my phone on.
I pressed the doorbell. I heard a tinny rendition of that famous song from Swan Lake. Mummy answered the door. Not in her dressing gown letting a dog out for the toilet; far from it. She was wearing a lilac fitness ensemble: tight shorts and a leotard over the top. There was something incredibly masculine about her. Not quite like that shot-putter who was disqualified from the Olympics for being a man, but not far off. She made a grunt-like sound and then turned around. Her leotard went into a thong at the back. I don’t think I’d ever seen such a tight bottom. She might well have been touching cloth. I watched her bottom cheeks as they headed towards the kitchen: not a wobble. She left me alone in the hallway. That was no good. If Eamonn called me it would have no impact. I wondered what he’d do. He had been incandescent the night before. Rachel and I managed to calm him down with three gins and a bottle of red wine. Their chef, yes, their chef, made an amazing three-course dinner. When I left they were snuggled together in an armchair feeding each other Stilton and grapes. I was very happy for them, although I do hope the Stilton goes to Rachel’s thighs. I was able to sleep then, knowing that I still had a job. However, I dreamt that Simon flew over to LA and told me that he loved me.
‘Sarah!’
Oh no. Oh please, God, no. I didn’t think I could do it. Miles Mavers was wearing cycling shorts. On the top he had a T-shirt with the logo ‘I gave up drinking, smoking and sex. The worst fifteen minutes of my life’ across the front. He’d tucked the T-shirt into his cycling shorts.
‘I’d love a glass of water.’ Why did this man think that I was put on the earth to personally irrigate him? ‘Bottled water!’ he quickly added.
I went to the kitchen. His jury’s-out-on-the-gender wife was on the floor again. I went to the fridge and opened it. Blimey. It was crammed with food. Mainly ‘fat free’, ‘calorie free’ foods. I was sure if I touched anything I would be buried under an avalanche of nutritionally bereft sustenance and it would take four days for the emergency services to find me. Luckily the water was in a side compartment.
‘Ah,’ I cried. Something had hit me on the bottom. I looked behind me to see Mummy’s trainer-ed foot squidging my bum.
‘Don’t move’ she panted.
I couldn’t frigging move; I was wedged in by the fridge door and her spread-eagled body.
‘I gotta do fifteen.’
I waited for her to do fifteen crunches with her legs akimbo, then I grabbed a glass and left the kitchen, taking the bottle with me. As I walked to the office, my phone started to vibrate in my pocket. Miles was standing in his study doing pelvic rotations. I tried not to look as I dispensed him his water. Even though I knew it was Eamonn calling I was still disappointed not to see Simon’s name.
‘Oh, sorry Miles, it’s Eamonn Nigels. I’d better take it.’ I acted very apologetic and watched his reaction. He didn’t seem so cocky now. He’d stopped circling his groin and nervously picked up a paper clip.
‘Hi, Eamonn. Thanks sooo much for last night. I had a lovely evening. What . . . oh no, I’m not at the hotel . . . no . . . I’m at Miles Mavers’s house . . . I’m having a voice session . . . no, no, God no, I didn’t ask him . . . he told me I needed help . . . haha . . . yes . . . we all need help, true very true . . . oh, OK . . . let me just check with Miles.’
‘Miles, I am so sorry, the writer has written me another scene, apparently! Eamonn wants to make sure I get it personally. Do you mind if he pops round? He won’t disturb the class. I won’t let him. We’ve got work to do.’
‘No . . . n-no.’ He was clearly shitting it. He was cleaning his nails with a paper clip and you don’t do that in public unless you’re distrac
ted.
‘OK, Eamonn. See you shortly,’ I sang. I fixed my eyes on Miles in his ruffled state and smiled. ‘Ah, Eamonn is such a nice man.’
I hated to admit it but I was enjoying this. Blimey. Eamonn must have called from just outside because at that moment Swan Lake was piped around the house.
‘DADDY!!’ we heard. The windows hadn’t shattered, which was surprising.
‘DADDY!! EAMONN NIGELS IS HERE. DADDY!’
‘Wonderful projection,’ I said to Miles.
He didn’t respond.
‘Shall I let him in?’ I asked. I was clearly too late because Twinkle Toes entered at that moment, dressed as before but with lipstick.
‘Daddy, Eamonn Nigels is here to see you.’
‘Actually, Chelsea, I’m here to see Sarah.’ He looked at me and held out his arms. ‘There she is, my little star!’ I thought I was going to start giggling but luckily he hugged me so I composed myself in his armpit. ‘Now then, the writer has written more for you. Can you believe it, Miles? The writer has heard her once and wants to write a new scene for her.’ Eamonn started shaking his head and looking at me in disbelieving wonder. I didn’t know what to do. So I hit him and said, ‘Oh, go on with you!’
‘Now then, why are you here so early?’
‘Voice classes,’ I said innocently.
Eamonn’s tone changed.
‘Sarah. I don’t think you need voice classes.’
Miles’s face fell like a plane with a pigeon in the engine.
‘I am the director. I think your accent and performance are fantastic and I don’t want anyone except me to give you assistance.’
He paused, then he eyeballed Miles and said, ‘Is that clear?’
Miles didn’t respond. Eamonn carried on.
‘Chelsea, would you leave the room?’ He didn’t look at her though. He was still pointedly staring at Miles. Chelsea did a brisk arabesque, stubbed her foot on a floorboard and then scuttled away.
‘One other thing, Miles.’
‘Eamonn.’
‘If you do try to interfere with my actresses, don’t be so obtuse in future as to email me your daughter’s CV repeatedly while you’re doing it.’
Miles opened his mouth.
‘I know. I’m a father too. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for our kids. But I made my decision when I cast Sarah and NOT your daughter for this role. And that is the final decision.’
Miles looked very humbled. I started to feel sorry for him.
‘We’ll show ourselves out.’
I held my breath until the front door was closed behind us.
‘Wow. You are the bollocks. “Don’t be so obtuse.”’
Eamonn put his arm around me, I was sure for the benefit of eyes at windows.
‘Did she really audition for my part?’
‘Yes, could you imagine anything more deafening?’ He did a Chelsea screech. ‘Bye, Ned!’ I had to laugh.
‘Now then, where am I taking you for breakfast?’
fifty-five
‘Wowzers, you lost weight on that fast! I mean, you were tiny before but now I’d be worried about you falling down a drain.’
‘Yeah, eighteen pounds.’ She bared her Simon Cowellwhite teeth proudly.
‘Sit at that great table by the window. I’ll get your coffee.’
Already-good service suddenly became fit for Gordon Ramsay when you were with a successful film director in LA.
‘I’ll come and take your order in a moment.’
Just once, in LA, it would have been nice to be served by a lardy waitress. Or even just someone who enjoyed food. Or even just someone who ate food. There’s something heavenly about an obese waitress. One who says, ‘Do you want a fried slice with that?’ Obviously, you don’t let on that you are a fried bread fiend when faced with that question. You don’t reply. You falter and say, ‘Um . . .’ And then the obese waitress says, ‘Oh, go on! You’re a waif. Have two. Get some meat on your bones!’ It’s got to be wrong when you want to persuade the server to sup rather than the other way round.
‘Coffee,’ she said, pouring. ‘Are you ready to order?’
Blimey! When she said ‘in a moment’ she meant ‘in a moment’. When Julia and I were at the café and we said, ‘We’ll be back to take your order in a moment,’ we usually only remembered about that table when we were on the bus on the way home.
We ordered. No fried slices were offered. I turned to Eamonn.
‘I’m feeling bad.’
‘Well, I’m not surprised after that appalling experience with Miles Mavers.’
‘No, it’s nothing to do with that. I feel bad because last night the subject changed to our ambitious voice coach and I didn’t give you much sympathy about the Rachel situation.’
‘Ah.’
‘Tell me.’
‘She’s just not herself at the moment.’ He shook his head sadly.
‘In what way?’
‘Well, she’s lost her get up and go.’
‘Eamonn, she does yoga every day, she comes to stripping with me. She never stops!’
‘She never used to stop. But when she’s at home she’s always asleep. Haven’t you noticed?’
‘Well . . .’ I paused. I didn’t want to tell Eamonn about the near-death experience because I didn’t want to worry him.
‘Sarah?’
‘We nearly had a crash the other day because she sort of dozed off.’
‘She what? Sarah! Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Eamonn, I’m hardly likely to call you and say your bird nearly totalled her hire car.’
‘Well, perhaps she’s ill.’
We were quiet for a few moments.
‘She might be anaemic,’ I suggested eventually. ‘I think that makes you tired.’
‘She might well be anaemic. She does look a little pale,’ said Eamonn, ridiculously. Rachel Bird could never have been described as pale. Orange, yes. The colour of a crab in a tanning-booth, yes. The only way in which you could have used the word ‘pale’ in conjunction with Rachel Bird would have been to say that she made Peter Andre look pale.
I had another theory. Rachel Bird could be depressed. She was sleeping because she didn’t want to face the world. She was used to being someone in her own right. Admittedly, that someone was a sexually depraved exconvent girl. But she’d become Eamonn Nigels’s lady friend. And she’d moved all the way to LA to be with him and he was ignoring her. But how could I say all this to Eamonn? ‘You’ve made your bird miserable!’ And what did I say to Rachel? ‘Oh, cheer up, you lazy cow!’
‘Hmmm.’
‘Will you talk to her about it? Encourage her to go to the doctor’s.’
‘Yeah, she was saying something about her implant hurting as well.’
I suddenly felt my mobile phone vibrate in my back pocket.
‘Eamonn!’ I gasped. ‘You have to pray this is Simon calling. He loves me! He’s left Ruth but Ruth is cool about it because she’s met a fabulously hung landscape gardener. OK?’
‘Er, of course.’
‘Arghhh! It’s an English number. Hello?’
‘How’s my favourite client?’
‘Oh, Geoff,’ I said miserably. ‘It’s you.’
‘Well, that’s no way for my favourite client to speak to me.’
‘Sorry. But you’re not my boyfriend.’
‘Oh, well, I’ll be off then. I won’t mention the incredibly well-paid commercial you have just been cast in. Bye!’
‘AH! AH! What? Geoff!’
‘The face of Crème de Menthe, no less.’
‘NO?’
‘Yes!’
‘OH MY GOD!!!!!’
‘Now then, I’m going to tell you how much they’re paying. But I need to know you’re sitting down and you’re not holding any glassware.’
‘Why, is it dreadful?’
‘No, no. I don’t think seventy-five thousand pounds is dreadful.’
‘H-h-h-how much?’ I whispered.
<
br /> ‘Just over, actually. It’s a worldwide campaign. And, Sarah, I don’t know what you did, but they love you. I’m slightly worried they might have you confused with another actress.’
‘Seventy-five thousand pounds.’
‘That’s right. Just over.’
‘Seventy-five thousand pounds.’ I was crying. I spotted the starving waitress heading our way with the breakfasts. ‘I’d better go, Geoff!’
It was almost supernatural. Obviously, I’d imagined getting a commercial job before. But I’d always thought I’d be the face of an Egg McMuffin or a Whopper and I’d be paid seven hundred and fifty pounds, which wasn’t even a smudge on my overdraft. But now, not only was I going to be the face of Crème de Menthe, my all-time favourite spirit, a spirit I felt shaped me as an individual, but I was being given such a large sum of money it was making me feel faint. It was thrilling and terrifying in equal measure. It was a bit like going to bed with a man who has a massive penis.
‘Here’s your omelette. Oh!’ she said, clocking my face. ‘Is everything OK?’
‘She’s just won a lucrative commercial. She’s a bit overwhelmed,’ Eamonn laughed as an explanation while I blew my nose on the serviette.
‘No way!’ sighed the waitress.
‘I know! It’s mental, mental chicken oriental!’ I sobbed.
‘Wow. I just asked the universe to get me a commercial job!’
‘R-i-i-i-ght.’
She was wacky. I wondered whether it was a symptom or cause of the vinegar diet. It would have been wrong to ask.
‘Oh my God. I just read The Secret. And that’s what I asked! I just asked the universe to get me a commercial job. It feels really meant to be that I should witness your news today!’
‘Er, I don’t suppose you have any English mustard?’ asked Eamonn.
‘What is this thing? The Secret?’
‘It’s a book. You basically ask for what you want and then you believe it and it happens.’
‘Do you think it would help me get my ex-boyfriend back?’
‘Yeeeaaas!’
‘Even if he’s with his ex-girlfriend who is carrying his baby?’
She scrunched her face.
‘It’s worth a try.’
‘Er, the English mustard?’
She scurried away. I gloated that even perfect waitresses forget mustard. When she reappeared, she left a jar of English mustard by Eamonn and a book called The Secret next to me.
The (Im)Perfect Girlfriend Page 19